Nouman Ali Khan

And Your Lord has decreed that you Worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age In your life, Say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them In terms of honour. 24. And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through Mercy, and say: "My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was small." 25. Your Lord knows best what is In your inner-selves. If you are righteous, then, Verily, He is ever Most forgiving to those who turn unto Him again and again In obedience, and In repentance. Assalamualaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa barakatuhu Today we are talking about the importance and value of regard for our parents and I've chosen of the many ayah dedicated to this subject probably the central ayahs from Surah Al Israa, surah no. 17, these are ayahs 23 to 25 dealing with the subject. Allah az wajjal begins & He says "Wa qada rabbuk" - Your Lord declared "Alla tabudu illa iyyah" - that you will not be enslaved to anyone except Him alone. "wa bil waalidaini ehsana" - and in regards to both of your parents the best possible conduct. Those of you that are from Persian or Urdu or similar backgrounds have one common misconception: "Oh a lot of the words in the Quran are also in Urdu, so I know what it says, I know the meanings." Well you know it so happens that a lot of the words in similar languages like Turkish or Urdu or Persian that are influenced by the Arabic language have similar vocabulary but they mean different things. They don’t mean the same thing. So just because you know what the word means in English or in Urdu or in Farsi doesn't mean you know the word in Arabic. Just to give you an extreme example of that, so that the matter becomes absolutely clear. In the Arabic language Allah uses a word in the Quran "Zaleel". If I use this word in Urdu you would be offended. And in Quran Allah uses the plural of it (the plural of Zaleel is Azilla) and He uses it for the Sahaba, "Wa lakad nasrakumullahu bi badarin wa antum azilla" - Allah aided you at the time of badr while you were all (collectively) azilla - meaning weak or powerless. So the word Zaleel in Arabic means weak or powerless, incapable of helping oneself. This is what it means. But in another language it may be very very offensive. And the reason I bring this up is the word "ehsan", I think because my first language is Urdu when you think of the word ehsan, you are thinking of a favour. Now Allah says "wa bil waalidaini ehsana" - with both of your parents have ehsan, which means do them favours? Actually no, it has nothing to do with doing them favours. It means to be the best at something. Ehsan in Arabic is excellence, it has nothing to do with doing favours. It has to do with doing your best. So Allah is demanding from us nothing short of our best when it comes to our parents. What that means is you have a potential to be good, to be patient or to be merciful or to have kind words or to be charitable or to have courtesy... The best of your courtesy, the best of your words, the best of your patience should go to who? Your parents. So of the good characteristics you have the peak of them, the highest of them who is deserving of them? Your parents. But He says this of course after He mentions Himself. "Wa qada rabbuka Alla tabudu illa iyyah" - The ayah begins "Your Lord declared that you do not enslave yourself to anyone except Him alone." And then He immediately went to the parents, and look at the high standard He set for us "wa bil waalidaini ehsana". Now there are other places in the Quran where Allah says "Husnan", instead of the word "ehsana" He says "husnan". Husnan is more general - Good. Generally speaking you have to have an attitude of good towards your parents. But with ehsan, with the use of this word ahsana, to be the best, to excel,

13. Our Legacy for the next generation: Doubt?

Middle of Surah Baqara Ayat 142 -143 Prophet ((SAW)) has moved to madinah and now his audience is different , the mushrikoon of Arabia were different audience and now He ((SAW)) has come into contact with a Christian and Jewish community more so there was interaction before but it was indirect and very minimal, but now there is an direct interaction with Christian and Jewish community and in particular the Jewish community Allah Azzawajal chose to address first and you will find an interesting thing a long address with the Christian community is found in the next surah Al-e-Imran and a long interaction with the Jewish community is found in Al-baqara. One of the fundamental reason that the Jewish community of Arabia decided to reject Muhammad Ur Rasool Allah ((SAW)) by large is that He ((SAW)) did not belong to the family, He ((SAW)) was not from the children of Ishaq (A S), He (SAW) was from the children of Ismail(A S) so he was not from the “chosen group” ,He ((SAW)) was not one of them. When Allah Azzawajjal revealed the Quran and he revealed instructions, a lot of instructions were same which Allah gave to Musa (A S) .The sharia we follow a lot of it is a continuation of the sharia of Musa (A S).So as part of it Muhammad ((SAW)) used to fast on the same days as the Jews, he used to pray in the same direction as the Jews did and even claimed the day of ashura the day of victory of Musa (A S ) as the day of fasting and celebration for the Muslims so there is a lot of parallel . Allah Azzawajjal exposes in surah baqarah that there was a knowledgeable group among the Jewish community of Madinah that have actually done their home work and they looked to this messenger(S AW) and they found that every single description that they were given about him in there books ,so they came to the conclusion that in fact this “IS THE Messenger of Allah(S A W) “. And at the same time they came to a very strange conclusion also that “NO MATTER WHAT WE WILL NOT FOLLOW HIM, WE WILL NOT ACCEPT HIM AS A MESSENGER OF ALLAH”. Because they were kind of mad at God (naaouzobillah) that how can he sent a messenger at the wrong address. So in this surah what Allah Azzawajal does is that he exposed them, they actually start blaming Jibreel (A S) that he must have gone to the wrong address. Allah defends Jibreel(A S) in this surah Say: Whoever is the enemy of Jibreel-- for surely he revealed it to your heart by Allah's command, verifying that which is before it and guidance and good news for the believers. Whoever is the enemy of Allah and His angels and His apostles and Jibreel and Meekaeel, so surely Allah is the enemy of the unbelievers. And Allah reminds them that if there is any ounce of sincerity that He((SAW)) is not from another family you come from the same father Ibrahim. So the ayat of baqarah started reminding the Jewish community about the legacy of Ibrahim (A S). There is a conversation between Ibrahim (A S) and his children When Ibrahim (A S) asked his children a question and this is the same question asked by Yaqoob (A S) to his children And this (submission to Allah, Islam) was enjoined by Ibrahim (Abraham) upon his sons and by Ya'qub (Jacob), (saying), "O my sons! Allah has chosen for you the (true) religion, then die not except in the Faith of Islam (as Muslims - Islamic Monotheism)." Ibrahim (A S) left a will for his children he gave them parting advice and so did Yaqoob (A S) . In others word Ibrahim (A S) his son Ishaaq and Ishaaq’s son Yaqoob Two generation difference , the grandfather long ago said something to his kids and generation later the grandson is saying the same exact thing to his kids on his death bed. The generational tradition is being continued, in on ayah three generations. Yaqoob’ s (A S) other name was Israel and he was saying to the son ‘s of Israel...

11. The Coolness of Eyes

CHARACTERISTICS OF PEOPLE OF JANNAH Ayah # 133-136 Surah Al-Imran Lecturer :Nouman Ali Khan Be quick in the race for forgiveness from your Lord, and for a Garden whose width is that (of the whole) of the heavens and of the earth, prepared for the righteous Those who spend (freely), whether in prosperity, or in adversity; who restrain anger, and pardon (all) men- for Allah loves those who do good And those who, having done something to be ashamed of, or wronged their own souls, earnestly bring Allah to mind, and ask for forgiveness for their sins,- and who can forgive sins except Allah?- and are never obstinate in persisting knowingly in (the wrong) they have done For such the reward is forgiveness from their Lord, and Gardens with rivers flowing underneath,- an eternal dwelling: How excellent a recompense for those who work (and strive) Here, Allah SWT describes some characteristics of people of Jannah that can be summarized as follows: • These are the people who spend when it is easy and when it is difficult; spending when it is easy shows some gratitude. People tend to have this attitude when things are good. But when things are bad, people may get fear that if they spend, they are not going to get it back so inshaAllah when things are good we will give. But the people who really have taqwa of Allah, they know that Allah mentions whoever has taqwa of Allah, Allah makes a way out for him and provides him from where he could not even imagine. Allah says whatever good you spend it will be refunded to you and you cannot be wrong. Prophet SAWW also promises that money cannot experience loss because of sadaqa. Reminding that promise, the people who give sadaqa will get the bonus in any form and it can be seen in daily practice. So we have to have such confidence in Allah. So giving for the sake of Allah is actually an opportunity to become more conscious of Allah’s presence. • People who swallow their anger; what does “swallowing” mean? When somebody is chewing with his mouth closed, the second person still notices that there is something in the mouth, but when somebody swallows what has been eaten it won’t be noticed anymore. So there is one thing that “hold” your temper. You are angry but there is no sign of anger on your face, and people perceive as there is nothing wrong with you .And this should be done immediately and continuously. • Those who lovingly forgive people; forgiveness can be of two types. You can forgive people by insulting them like “hey you were mean to me that day but I forgive you”. This is a show of arrogance. You may start with another fight for example “what do you mean, you are forgiving me? It is me who forgive you”. So the true forgiveness happens in private. When you make dua for yourself, make dua for that person lovingly. it is the mercy of ALLAH that Prophet SAWW is lenient towards the sahabah even when some of them make him annoyed “If you are stern they would have run away from you.” (Al-Quran) Allah commands “fa’fu anhum was taghfirlakum” means forgive them and ask Allah to forgive them too. • And Allah loves those who excel in their Deen; In regards to previous points it should be considered that sometimes we say things that we regret. Even if a person is blatantly wrong, how do you know he is still on that? How do you know he did not make tauba? How do you know he did not change his mind? Many scholars we see were once to be very different persons but whatever they used to say or do years back is not being practiced now. A person may be close to Allah and you are bad mouthing him as a result Allah takes away your god deeds and hand over to that person and in this way; you are actually doing favor for that person. Unfortunately, in Muslim community especially in the acts of ibadah,

CONTRADICTING COMMUNITY Alhamdulillah, assalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah summa amma ba’ad. i didn’t share a title because this was not gonna be a lecture, it was gonna be a rant Insha-Allah. And it was gonna be a rant about a frustration I’ve been feeling for a long time that I want to share with you and hopefully I want you to feel it with me, if you don’t already ok? Alhamdulillah summa Alhamdulillah I’ve gotten the chance to get intimately close to good number of communities all over the country and I’ve noticed a serious contradiction. You have a town like Houston and you have Muslims spending , you know, almost three weeks studying Islam day and night in one part of it and not too far from here maybe within a one mile radius you have Muslims doing things I can’t say here. And it’s the majority. You have masajid where people are coming for Jumma’ prayer and they have some serious, serious problems like when I say serious problems I’m not just talking about theological issues that are serious, I’m not just talking about issues of ignorance in terms of knowledge, that’s serious too. I’m talking about serious psychological problems, serious family problems, drug, alcohol, you name it. They’re coming to Friday prayer and the one place that’s supposed to give them solutions, guess what? It’s not. We’re going across the country and SubhanAllah it’s a gift of Allah that we- masajid have now become a part of the American landscape. Masajid are incredible. You’ve got large multi million properties, I mean we’re huge. We’re huge and SubhanAllah how we’ve been able to raise those funds because usually, the masjids and the world landscape they’re government funded projects or they’re public projects. These are privately funded institutions that are being built all over this country and yet these same masjids are not equipped, nor nearly equipped for the most part to deal with some of the most basic problems of the Muslim community. I’m going to share this problem with you at three levels. First I’ll just talk about the youth, just the youth. There’s the you kind of youth, you know what that means? They’re somehow identified as religious, they’re attending religious programs, they’re learning in whatever capacity, they’re attending some sort of a ‘Halaqa’, they have some sort of relationship with an Imam or two, right? They’re watching videos on You-Tube, downloading mp3’s off the internet, reading articles, books, this and that, you know, blogging on like, you know, religious websites, asking fatwah questions, that sort of thing. Religious youth. On the other end of the spectrum you have the messed up youth. Who are these guys? These guys are Muslim too, which you wouldn’t know. You would not know. And the things which you say Astaghfirullah to, the things that you pass by and say ‘La hawla wala quwwata illa billah’ that’s nothing for them. That’s just the beginning. They are up to some really bad stuff. Really bad. And it’s so bad that if I sit and, we’ve actually done this in Virginia when I was there, sit down with a couple of Imams and you explain to them what the youth are doing, you take a couple of messed up youth that you can talk to, you bring them over and you say, ‘why don’t you, Me. Messed up youth, tell Mr. Imam here, what you guys are up to?’. And the Imam refuses to believe it. ‘No, come on, that’s—no, that’s impossible. Does that even exist?’ Yup! That exists. It’s a scary reality. That is the messed up youth. And then there’s the middle youth. You know who they are? They used to be party animals and they somehow accidentally stumbled upon an MSA? Or accidentally clicked on a You-Tube video? Or they- one of their friends became religious or something? And so they’re kinda, sorta inclined? Maybe they’ll put on hijab sometime. Maybe they’ll let it grow for a couple of days, right? But then they’ll sometimes drift back, then they get pulled here, they’re sort of in the middle.

What I am going to be talking about , and I’d to actually turn it into more of a conversation than a lecture, is the concept of science in the Quran, but that is sort of abrupt as a topic because it needs a context, so I am going to present that context first, and then we’ll go into some examples of science in the Quran. The Quran in Muslim belief is two things in one. It’s a divine message but at the same time, it is also a miracle. It’s considered a miracle. And when we talk about the word miracle – I mean, the divine message part, I think everybody understands – any people that adhere to a religion or way of life hold certain words to be scripture or to be Holy and this is the case of the Muslims with the Quran. But it’s just important to understand our concept of the word miracle before we go any further, because it is a very specific definition that Islam gives to the word that is not applicable to the word in common language. So even though I am using the word miracle, it’s not necessarily what you would think of usually. Now, I want you to think – where’d you use the word miracle? [Audience – inaudible] You want me to stop? Already? [Audience – inaudible] Ok, they want me to hold on and come back. But I don’t want to waste time, so what I’ll do is…I’ll talk to you about some things, and when other people come in, I’ll start over and I’ll quiz you on what I’ve talked about. Ok? This makes good use of our time. So you’ll signal me, and I’ll restart, no problem. Ok, InshaAllah. So, in common language, nowadays, where’d you use the word miracle. You are watching TV. Who’d use the word miracle? Doctors? Do you use the word miracle? Yeah, sports, definitely. You know, the short clock’s running down, somebody takes a chuck at it from the half-court, and it goes in and everybody screams. It’s a miracle. Right? Basically, also, you call your friends after you’ve really tanked the exam , and then the day of the grades, you go into class and you’ve got a 97, and you say this is…this is a miracle. Haha. Right? Miracles – basically what people think of, when they think of the word miracle, is something really good and unexpected that happens to you or someone else – as a miracle. Somebody’s healed . Right? Or something really great happened. Or something very unexpected happened. Highly unlikely. But not impossible. It is highly unlikely, but not…impossible. That’s the general connotation of the word miracle, in language. But it also has a spiritual sense, among religions in general. And in the spiritual sense, it has nothing to do with experiencing something or that something that can be proven. It rather has to do with something you feel in your heart. So, you can speak to someone of a particular faith and they can say well I believe that such and such religion is a miracle because I felt that miracle in my heart. I feel it. And I can’t give you that feeling – you’ll have to feel it for yourself. Right? So, it’s basically – when we use the word in the spiritual sense, what you are actually saying is that it is not something provable at all. It is not something that can be gauged in scientific terms. It is a personal experience, really, right? So, that’s the second. And thirdly, I want to say something a bit controversial – the word miracle is irrelevant…in the context of science. It’s irrelevant. Why? Because the scientific community in general, whenever they study a phenomena, what is their attempt? Are they trying to figure out if this is a miracle or is there a scientific explanation behind it? What their attempt always? To find a scientific explanation. So, scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as a miracle. It has to have some sort of explanation. If you believe in miracles, then you are not truly a scientist.

7. Wasting Time

6. Youth's attitude towards Quran

Signs of a hypocrite When there is s serious disease outbreak, warnings are given out. And people are given any means possible and they are reminded over and over again that you need to be careful, this is a dangerous disease. If you have the following symptoms, go see a physician. And there are alerts everywhere. I remember recently, because I used to travel a lot, when the bird flu and swine flu was going around, at airports they had free hand sanitizers and extra alerts and if you are sneezing, don’t travel and this and that. Depending on how serious a disease is, the more panicked a society gets and rightfully so. And if the disease is life threatening then it’s more serious. Sometimes schools are shut down, and people don’t go to work, and even if they don’t have those symptoms/ if they don’t actually have that disease but they have even the most minor instances of that symptom, people start thinking maybe they have it. And they start citing with caution. They get extra careful because I don’t want to take any chances, you know, maybe this is just a cold or maybe this is that crazy deadly disease that they are talking about all the time all over the place. And obviously this is a natural response in any society. I wanted to introduce this khutbah this way because I want to talk to you about a disease and this is a disease believers should be reminded of all the time. And it’s a serious disease. You know in medical terminology like they say some of the most serious conditions you can have is a heart condition. Well, the disease I want to talk to you about is actually a heart disease and the Quranic term for it is “Nifaaq”. You commonly may have heard the term ‘hypocrisy”. Hypocrisy—it’s a disease and it’s a very serious disease. For any disease you have pathology. First of all what are the consequences? So what if somebody has hypocrisy? How bad can it be? What are the consequences of this disease? Well first let’s take a quick look at the consequences. Allah (SWT) tells us in the Quran, “The hypocrites, they are in the lowest pit of Hellfire.” The lower the hellfire gets, the tougher it gets. The lowest pit possible in Hellfire is reserved for al-munaafiqoon—the hypocrites. Then on top of that, how serious this disease is and how if somebody reaches the terminal stages? You know when there are the early stages of a disease you can go get treatment but if it gets to a point of no return, if the disease reaches a point of no return then you can’t be helped. No matter how good the treatment, no matter how expensive the hospital or the doctor or how advanced the equipment this person can’t be helped. A good friend of mine is a physician. He actually works in the ER; he sees a lot of like people close to death. So one time they had this young man who got into a car accident, he belonged to a very wealthy family. Non-Muslims. They came by private jet from all over the country and they are trying to tell them we don’t care how much money it takes, you need to save his life. And he got to a certain point where basically he was practically dead and he said no amount of money can save him now. That’s beyond us now. This is beyond the attempt of human beings. Now I want to bring that parallel back to hypocrisy. What is the cure? What is the remedy? You know one of the great gifts in this Deen is that the Messenger (SAW) would make dua for a person. You know how sometimes you go to the imaam; you ask him could you please make dua for me? Or you go ask the elder could you make dua for me. When somebody is travelling you say could you make dua for me because the dua of the traveler is accepted. When somebody is going to Hajj you make sure you call them and say make sure you make dua for me. And they ask you any special dua you want me to make for you because I am going there? Now imagine if the Messenger (SAW) himself is making dua for someone.

4. Do you intend to question the Messenger (SAW)

Asssalamulaikaum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. I am not complaining, I am just saying that the microphone system here is very shorty so, the harder you talk the harder it becomes for me to hear myself even. So try to, Insha Allah. Usually I have a very good attention span that I can talk over voices given that I have a lot of children and a lot of students so I am used to that but this subject matter requires an extra deal of concentration and organization of thought so I am requesting that you, thank you so much. Alhamdulillahirabbil 'Alamin (Arabic dua for opening speech) I will try to keep my talk to about 25 minutes or so, so if it is getting to that time just raise your hand so that I know that I got to stop Insha Allah. Basically I was asked to talk a little about Atheism, theism and the proof of God’s existence, why should I believe in god anyway. All of which are very legitimate questions and very deep questions. None of these questions can be addressed in a one liner. My wife has a very one liner of it. I will share it with you first. She says "God exist whether you like it or not and if you do not believe it well fine He will get you anyway" (Audience laughing) So, that could have been my talk and I will start after my wife I will start with something that the ancient Bedouin Arab used to say, like sometimes there would be people from other civilizations like the Persians or Romans they would do trade before Islam. They would do trades sometimes or pass through Arabia and they would see these Arabs and even though they had shifted, they still believe in God, they still believe in one Supreme Being. So somebody asked the Bedouin Arab, "How do you know that God exists?” “How do you come to faith?” “How did faith come to you?" And you know these Arabs they spend most of their time in the dessert. So he says something really interesting. He pointed at his camel's "Droppings" you know “Doody”. He pointed and he goes, "You know because of that I know that my camel exists". That's all he said. And what did he mean by that? He meant that, you know when I see that in the dessert, when you see something, it is a sign of something else. When you see like you know, a path or footprint you know somebody walked by here. When you see a fire that has been put out but there are still ashes there, you know that some people were camping and they left. There are trace of you. He looks at all the creations as traces of God. Just like that small feces just in front of him are a trace of his camel that his camel is there. So in his mind there is no doubt. That is as straight forward as linear the thinking is. That is not even a question. Now I want to come to actually the Quran’s reasoning. Well this is a simple way of looking at things. But I want to see if the Quran deals with this subject. And you should know that it explicitly the Quran does not ask the question or answer the question “Does God exists”. That is not the question in the Quran. That question doesn’t exist. The Quran is Allah speaking himself. And He is in conversation with his creatures, with you and me. He is in direct conversation with us. The only question He asks is “Do you really believe it is Me talking? Do you really believe that these words are my own?” You are not hearing Allah’s words; you are hearing the voice of Muhammad (peace is upon him). And these words are being given to him so that’s the question the Quran asks “Is this God’s words or not?” He asked other questions related to God “Are there other God that you should be worshipping besides Myself?” “Do you think that you are going to worship yourselves and not Me?” “Do you think that you are going to thank others other that Myself?” These are the kinds of questions that the Quran asks. It never asked the question “Does God exist or not?” But then another question rises out of all questio...

2. Islamophobia

WHEN WILL YOU SUBMIT? I first of all ask Allah (swt) to give me strength and clarity to deliver a message that is beneficial and its something that remains in the hearts and minds of myself included and all the Muslims because the subject that I have chose that I have chosen to share with you today is of really a paramount importance and typically what I like to do in Khutbah is to focus on some portion of Allah's words. And the portion I have selected for you today is the 54th ayah of Surah-An Nisa. Surah Nisa happens to be the surah as early Madni by most accounts. And includes in it many instructions for Muslims and how to set up themselves as a community. So some of the foundations or principles for Muslim community to be established in Madina in the life of Madina. And in it it also has principles for us of how to go beyond the community and really truly become a nation. So you know there is this idea of us the smallest unit of humanity being an individual and beyond that being a family and beyond that being a neighbourhood and beyond that being a community and even beyond that being a nation. And so these stepping stones that lead us to become a solidify nation, an ummah. And Allah mentions these ayahs in these injunctions in one after the other in this surah . So of them having to do with divorce law, others having to do with fighting in the path of Allah, spending in the path of Allah. And you find a very interesting contrast. You find Allah talking to two groups of people. One group of people that is refusing to accept Islam. And another group of people who have accepted Islam on the outside but have walked away on Islam from the inside, the Munafiqoon. And there are different kinds of hypocrites, there are those who never really believe to begin with and it was a fasad to begin with وَقَد دَّخَلُوا بِالْكُفْرِ وَهُمْ قَدْ خَرَجُوا بِهِ Right? They never had to begin with. On the other hand there are those who may have come with good will they actually thought Islam has something good to offer and they accepted it thinking it is the truth its convincing and its a beautiful thing. But when it came to its instructions and injunctions and its demands they said I love Islam but this is getting a little too much. This is a lot to ask of a person. They were not like a lot of these people who came in to Islam a good number of them were not like the Sahaba of Makkah. You know when you come into Islam in Makkah, it is not a bed of roses to begin with. They already know if I become a Muslim now, well all the Muslims I know are being cursed at, tortured, beaten up, made fun of. They are getting kicked out from their families home. So if I join these people then I guess that's coming in my future too. There is no added advantages in becoming a Muslim in the worldly sense, not in Makkah anyway. When Prophet(saw) migrates to Madina, the Muslims are to begin with a strong community. Significantly stronger when they were in Makkah. And now if you become a Muslim the challenges are not the same as the challenges were in Makkah for the Muslim who become in Makkah that is, they are not the same. So a lot of times people would jump into Islam not realizing the consequences. What they are getting themselves into. This Deen is not an easy thing. This is not something you can take casually. It really is a change of course of your entire life. So Allah in these ayaat talks specifically there is an entire passage dedicated to a discussion for the Munafiqoon, for the hypocrites. And the hypocrites would walk away from Islam in 2 ways. And this is important. One is obviously leaving Islam altogether, رِدَّ , outright you become Muslim and everybody knows you are no longer Muslim, you have become a Kaafir again. But there is another form of turning away from Deen and that is from outside you say you profess to be from the Muslims because that has social consequences if you walk away from Islam outr...